Farmers worldwide are feeling the pinch as fuel costs rise to near four-year highs just as they plant and harvest their fields, eroding agricultural income already hamstrung by depressed crop prices.

The agricultural sector from the United States to Russia, and Brazil to Europe, is seeing profits harmed by the rise in diesel prices. The global oil benchmark, Brent crude, touched $80 a barrel for the first time since late 2014 on Thursday.

The CERES satellite dataset is a never-ending source of amazement and interest. I got to thinking about how much energy is actually stoking the immense climate engine. Of course, virtually all the energy comes from the sun. (There is a bit of geothermal, but it’s much less than a watt per square metre on average so we can ignore it for this type of analysis).

So let’s start from the start, at the top of the atmosphere. Here’s the downwelling top of atmosphere (TOA) solar energy for the northern and the southern hemisphere:

Figure 1. Top of atmosphere (TOA) downwelling solar energy. This is averaged on a 24/7 basis over the entire surface of the earth.